Putting a baby down awake

[Sparklesandglitter]

How important is it to put a baby down awake at night? My HV said that we should start putting DD (1 yo) down awake, she will generally, as long as she can find a dummy, settle herself if she wakes in the night.

So my question is do I continue feeding her to sleep and put her down asleep (usually takes 5-20minutes) or do I start the battle of putting down awake (it will take her up to 90 minutes to settle as she plays in the cot) how important is this?

Thanks

Up to you, really. I put my DC down awake from a few weeks old.

There are no rights or wrongs. If you're happy and it's working for you, then why change? :)

Depends if you see it as a problem. DD always went into her cot asleep, but if it had been a struggle we'd have fed her to sleep.

Depends on how easy your life is! If putting her down asleep works for you, keep at it. It's only worth changing when you've got a child who freaks out every time they wake.

I used to put DS 1 down awake as per advice and it often took forever. He was a dreadful sleeper until he was three or four.

I thought what the hell with DS2 and fed him to sleep. He was a dreadful sleeper and still is aged 3. He still isnt asleep now.

In conclusion it doesn't really matter what you do so do what feels right!

Thanks, we need to change her routine slightly so I think that may be why the HV suggested it as in 2 birds with 1 stone. She is on the whole a good sleeper as long as her routine is consistent.
What's the benefit to putting them down awake? I quite like cuddling to sleep as she rarely wants cuddles now shes mobile . But if it will help long term then I will do it

I've started putting my 8 month old down awake after I feed him. He's learnt to self settle in a week. I think it's a good skill for them to learn sooner rather than later. We still have lovely cuddles beforehand while reading a story and feeding :)

If she sleeps through the night (??) I see no reason to change.

the benefit of putting down awake is to teach them to self settle (and therefore self settle in the middle of the night if they wake up too)

I don't think there is any right or wrong but to be honest it never occured to me to wait until DS was asleep until I put him down - he had a last feed, I put him in his cot and left the room . Maybe we were lucky, maybe he was a natural 'self settler', but he was always in his cot by 7pm from the day we came home from hospital.

It wasn't until I found mumsnet that I realised most people cuddled their babies to sleep .

I cuddle to sleep, then at 6 months ish I battle to get them down awake (about to start this with dd!).

Benefit for me is helping to sleep through. Or aiming that way. But an extra benefit is to teach this evening self settle before they are mobile or can remember. As someone who takes ages to get to sleep at night myself, I really thing teaching the ability to get yourself to sleep in the first place is very important. If she's just playing and happy I'd leave her to it. Not a cc fan so took me ages to sort it with DS.

If she's a good sleeper anyway, I don't know what the benefit is. I wouldn't change it if you're happy with it. DD just stopped falling asleep on the boob around 11mo and I missed the sleepy cuddles and the easy bedtimes - make the most of it til your DD outgrows it too!

If she plays in the cot I'd put her in awake and not worry about her, if she were crying then it's different.

This so depends on the child. DS1 would not be put down awake at all until we did some mild sleep training (putting him down, staying with him, shush patting etc, but no feeding to sleep) around 14mo. We stopped feeding to sleep because we no longer wanted to do it, it was too much of a commitment. DS2 is 12 weeks and has been happy to be put down awake from the start (as long as we're close), he never feeds to sleep.

Do what works for you, when it no longer works, change it. Don't change things just because you feel you should because of a comment someone has made.